Seiko Men's Analogue Automatic Self-Winding Watch with Stainless Steel Bracelet – SNXS73K

Product Information

One of the crowning jewels of a Swiss made watch is the Swiss made mechanical movement, and they don’t come much more Swiss made than a Rolex. Rolex is one of a very few watchmakers who produce virtually everything in-house, piecing together every single watch from components made within its four walls.

That classic Rolex look really does boil down to just a few things: it’s clean, it’s simple and it’s well-proportioned. A Rolex is to luxury watches what a chimpanzee is to primates—the best, the original, the classic. When a design is as refined as a Rolex, anything else feels like needless excess, and so when you’re looking at a budget alternative, the same criteria apply. One of the achingly fantastic things about Rolex are the stories that come attached to it. Records, inventions, landmark moments that redefined the entire industry. It may not be the oldest brand, founded in 1905, but it’s had the biggest impact, bowling over the competition in a way that makes Tesla look like a manufacturer of wheelbarrows. Seiko, would you believe it, is actually older than Rolex. When Japan aligned its calendar system with the west, it gave founder Kintaro Hattori the opportunity to do something he’d always dreamt of: make watches. His goal was to impress the Swiss watchmakers he idolised—little did he know, his brand would bring the end to most of them. Once again, the SNXS's water resistance is on par with every other cheap Seikos. The push & pull crown only allows for 30m of water resistance, which is ok for a few splashes here and there, but nothing more. It may seem like Rolex and Seiko sit at complete odds with one another, but the truth is that they both have far more in common than you’d think. Both admired an industry that resisted them; both were small but thought big; and both took advantage of challenging times to grow instead of perish. The fact that they did that side by side is all the more satisfying. The Oily BitsAt least, mineral crystals have a few advantages, such as being less prone to shattering, and the surface isn't as reflective as sapphire.

Although style is a very personal concept, and what one person finds stylish another finds distasteful, I would say that this is a rather stylish watch being neither dull nor overly 'bling'. It has a lovely silver grey dial that can either be worn casually or as a dress watch and the gold accents are not over the top (quite understated actually). By Rolex standards, getting all fancy and dressed up means to no longer print its markers straight onto the dial like a barbarian and contain them within polished vessels instead. Sounds fancy, but whilst the painted markers serve nighttime reading by glowing in the dark, those polished surrounds actually help readability in the day by catching the light as well. If you do not like the bracelet strap it can be easily changed out for a leather strap and the coises are many

Specification

The Seiko SNXS79 follows much the same principles. There’s a dial demarcated with hands and markers to read the time from, a case to stop it getting wet and a bracelet to stop it falling off. Bells? None. Whistles? Not a peep. Rolex was founded as a watchmaker to the professionals, people working in trades that didn’t care if their watch could sing a song or play a tune. If the 'Grand Seiko' is the Lexus of watches the 'Seiko 5' could be considered the Toyota Corolla (look how many of these are around and how reliable they are).